


Keep Me Goin'

by Aestheticdenbrough



Series: Oneshots [31]
Category: IT (1990), IT (2017), IT (2019), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Family, First Meetings, Fluff, Happy, Happy Pride, M/M, Meet-Cute, No Angst, mechanic eddie, mlm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 22:33:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19119046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aestheticdenbrough/pseuds/Aestheticdenbrough
Summary: Mike Hanlon revisits his late father's car in hope of reliving some childhood memories. He finds it to be unfixable on his own, calling upon Eddie Kaspbrak, a local mechanic, to help her get running again. He may or may ot develop a little crush in the process.





	Keep Me Goin'

Childhood in springtime holds the best of MIke’s memories. The most sweet and the most well remembered. Every time they started up his car under the faint yellow sun the whispering wheeze of his pops’ vehicle echoes in the deep hollows of his mind. He’s not been down in Derry for a while, but the car alone in the barn calls his name. He’s still in Maine, Bangor this time so not so far from Derry that he couldn’t stop back from time to time. Which is exactly what he plans to do.

The drive feels long as nearly even unmoving but the thought of the memories and getting to see his mama keeps his foot on the gas pedal. He hangs one of his arms out the window, one on the wheel. His music rivals the roaring of the wind outside the car window. He’s always had a partialness to the music of Queen. He plays Bohemian Rhapsody at least three or four times on the drive there and he has no regrets on it. When he finally arrives nearer to his side of town he turns down the music and rolls up his windows, before he’d been on mostly empty backroads, but now he runs the risk of being seen or heard. He wonders if the Bowers gang still hangs out around here, he hasn’t seen them in years and he’d like to keep it that way.

Every time he comes back to Derry he nearly doesn’t recognize his own childhood home, his mom alone has done her best to keep the place clean and fresh so she can keep making the money off the farm that she needs to support herself. The people actually working these days are all hired younger people working for minimum wage, sometimes more. The front door has even been repainted, when he walks up to it he feels as if it’ll be someone else’s home when he opens it. He shakes the feeling off though, his mother is expecting him so she should come to his knock pretty quickly. She opens the door, her aged appearance still brings a smile to Mike’s lips. Words aren’t even passed between them before their arms wrap around each other. He sighs out a comforted hum, he misses his mother’s hugs even when they aren’t few and far between.

“Hey, Mama, it’s been too long hasn’t it, I’m sorry,” he apologizes, feeling bad that for the past few months all of their conversations have been over the phone. He already is at a loss for words, seeing as they’d been on the phone earlier to discuss the visit. “Where’s the car?” his voice comes out shy and sheepish, feeling a bit selfish with that being his focus.

Jess nods and links arms with her grown son, “It’s in the barn, I wouldn’t expect it to drive out of there any time soon, probably too old and busted at this point. We’ll probably need to call a tow truck if you want it goin’ home with you,” she tells him. She pulls up her worn blue jeans by the belt loops. She moves well and is quite playful for her old age, a slim and short woman with a contagious laugh. She fully believes the words of Walt Disney that state that everyone must grow old but she absolutely refuses to be fully grown up. It’s made her very successful and it surely made her a wonderful mother to her young Mike. mike hopes to become even more like her as he grows old himself.

She pulls the barn door open, the car is sitting coated in dust near the back corner. It brings a bittersweet taste to his mouth. On one hand the car holds loving memories of his late father, but seeing it looking so old and worn out and alone brings him a deep pang of guilt. He’s left it in storage like some worthless chunk of junk, it didn’t deserve that. She, she didn’t deserve this. His friend as a child always told him to call cars and boats she. It’s out of some level of respect, and damn well does this car deserve it even if none other did. The car broke down every damn springtime and every time his father was able to get her started again. Mike wants to be like him, going up to the ignition to see if it’ll work for him. To no surprise but much disappointment, she grumbles lowly at him but nothing further than that. Looks like he’ll be calling a tow truck and then a Bangor mechanic.

Getting a mechanic down in his hometown isn’t hard at all once he gets the car back home. The guy’s name is Kaspbrak. He runs this garage called Eddie’s, which Mike assumes must be his first name. He got the man’s business card from his friend Bill. He heard good things, and Bill is one to take good care of his car. It’s a bit of a junker but it’s Bill’s baby. If Bill can trust Eddie with his crappy little car, so can Mike. when he calls up the garage the man’s voice is calm and quiet, not overly confident but he sounds as if he knows what he’s doing. He makes an appointment for the next week. He can only hope that Eddie can get the old girl up and running again.

When Eddie asks him what’s going on with the vehicle Mike ends up going on an endless tangent about summers and springtimes all from his early life and all about his father. He hadn’t known that that would all come out but it did and there’s no turning back now. Eddie was completely understanding though and Mike feels that that specific trait or action sets him apart from a lot of people Mike usually comes into contact with. He admires it, really, to be a businessman and still be a genuine person.

He brings in the car on a Saturday morning, knowing for sure that she’s too damaged just to be in and out in a day or two. It’ll probably be pretty pricey too, she’s sat alone in a barn for the past twenty or so years. His first words to Eddie when they meet in person are fully taken up with him explaining that he doesn’t care how much it’ll cost, heck he’ll take out loans to restore this car. Anything to bring back this piece of his long gone childhood back. He may not be able to bring back his dad, but there’s a chance that he can bring back this one bit of him, and any chance is enough to push for success.

Eddie directs him to sit on a leather stool near the corner. “Just have a seat while I take my look-see and come up with a plan for what I can do for ya, yeah?” he suggests, rolling up the sleeves of his pin striped button up. It’s a classy shirt, white with light blue thin stripes that run vertically up his torso. It’s not completely neat, though, smudged with thick smudges of black grease. It’s a pretty good look on him as far as a messy look on a man that seems otherwise well put together can go.

 

Mike just nods and sits up on the tall seat, his hands clutched awkwardly to the side of it. He thinks he ought to be quiet, but watching Eddie’s sleeves go up brings on a peaky nervous sweat. He’s always been a nervous rambler, and he can feel the words tremble on the tip of hi tongue. What he’s realized is that Eddie Kaspbrak is pretty goddamn hot, especially in the way that his eyes squint when he tries to focus. “Think she’s workable?” he asks finally, his voice coming out slightly more hushed and hurried than he’s meant it to.

Eddie pops back up from behind the other side of the car, for a moment feeling anxious himself at Mike’s worried tone. But then he does remember that this car had been Mike’s late father’s, that would make him pretty nervous himself too. “Probably, lots of engine work, possibly a new battery. And these tires are basically fuckin’ bald,” Eddie says that last part with a small chuckle, “If she can be fixed it will take me a bit,” and pretty pricey, but Eddie doesn’t mention that because of what Mike said earlier. A post-grieving man is not one to judge nor one to argue with. Mourning is a lifelong process and this is a part of Mike’s process with his own dad. Eddie gets it, he was too young when his father passed to have is own process. But God bless Frank Kaspbrak, he had to deal with Sonia for years before Eddie did, so Eddie assumes he must have been a saint of a man.

This brings Mike a small grin. She can be fixed, maybe time really can heal all wounds. He would even name the car after his dad, but William is also the name of one of his closest friends. That would end up awkwardly, he wouldn’t have the heart to explain that it had been his dad’s name and not just Bill’s every time someone asked. “Do you need my number again to keep me updated?” Mike suggests. Maybe he just wants a reason to be able to text Eddie, maybe not even about the car. But he’d never admit that. Eddie just seems like a good and honest man, the kind Mike likes to befriend.

“Yeah my business cards are over there on the shelf under the tool rack. There should be some pens too, write the number you want to contact you with on the back if it isn’t too much trouble.” Eddie is down by the car again, trying to pull up the hood to take a look at whatever mess it has become. There’s a thick puff of dust that takes some place in the air, making Eddie cough incessantly.

Mike picks up one of the pens, trying not to get grease or oil on his fingers. He writes more neatly than he usually does, not wanting Eddie to try and text the wrong person or even just think he’s more of a mess than he already seems to be. He still ends up with a dark glob on his hand that must have transferred from the pen, leaving himself sighing. Eddie is a car guy anf he spends his time getting dirty in the garage and hardly even caring. Leaving the car in Eddie’s care isn't as nerve wracking as he originally thought it would be, and he only has a few racing thoughts run through his mind on the drive home.

Coming back for her is just as special as he thought it would be. She’s not very shiny and she surely needs a new coat of paint, but something about being able to put the key in and feel the car start makes his heart swell with joy. He hopes his dad really would be happy with him for it, and he really would be proud of Eddie for fixing the car in a way he never could himself. “What do you say we take her for a quick test spin?” he suggests as he slides fully into the driver’s seat and buckling himself in. “We could go down to the diner a couple blocks down?” he finally gets the courage to ask the man out, and the butterflies return when Eddie happily obliges.


End file.
